Scene from "Charming Girl No More"

Here is the first scene in part II of "Charming Girl No More." We meet the brilliant but angry Alba Ayfray, director of the Bureau of Safety, who searches for a way to chemical alter woman's minds so they stop making 'bad' decisions. But Alba is interrupted by her co-direct Hugo Purr who has some bad news.

Part II: The Underground

Alba in her Lab

Alba looked up from her microscope.

     “What do you mean, ’compromised?’” she said, making a excruciating squeak as she pushed her metal stool back from her lab bench.

     “Uh. Well. It s-seems someone got inside it,” Hugo said, looking at his loafers.

     “Someone got inside the Dark Room?”

     “They are out. They are out. Now,” Hugo put his hands up, fingers splayed in front of him as if to ward off an aggressive force coming at him. Hugo didn’t know where to look. He wanted to avoid seeing the dark, sleepy shapes that seemed to be whimpering quietly on the cots behind Alba’s workbench. Hugo caught a glimpse of a hand from one cot reaching over to a gnarled hand on the other cot. Still the whining continued.

      “And WHO is—“

     “Stanford! Best of the best, as they say. Stanford is following her.”

     “Her?!” Alba whipped around. The blue, electric glow from the tanks holding spines and brains, silhouetted her thin rigid figure. It scared Hugo so much all he could do was clear his throat and search his pockets for a Post-it pad. He needed to write something down.

     “How did SHE get out?”

     “It’s still a mystery, as they say.” Hugo cleared his throat again.

     “Where’s the corset?”

     Hugo shuffled, found a post it, and jotted something down.

     “The corset? Hugo? Where is it?” Alba said quieter than a snake.

     “Uh. Can’t be found. Two teams turned the room upside down.”

     “Send a third team. And have Stanford bring her directly to this lab when he finds her,” Alba said, going back to the microscope, “now I need to get some work done. This is worse that the stem cell lab. Too. Many. Histrionics. Ugh, so boring. I can’t…” she trailed off.

     Hugo tiptoed out and shut the door without a sound. He concentrated on the sound of his shoes against the dirty concrete of the hallway. Because he wanted to erase the realization that one of those lumpy shifting shapes on the cots-he saw her face clearly when she rolled over- was Maeve’s close friend, Welda.